This invention relates in general to a surgical splint or bandage device for protecting a pedal digit such as the hallux or big toe of a patent following surgical or other operations performed thereon.
In many instances following surgical treatment of a pedal digit such as the hallux or big toe of a human being, for example, the correction of hallux abducto valgus or so-called bunions, it is customary and sometimes necessary to apply a protective splint device or bandage of some sort over the toe in order to prevent injury thereto and mitigate against pain caused by pressure against the surgically treated toe such as exerted, for example, by adjacent toes or by a shoe worn on the patent's foot. Heretofore, such toe protector devices generally have been formed by hand from a small pad of plastic foam or other cushion material folded around the toe and held in place thereon as by wrapping a strip of surgical gauze or other fabric material around the cushioned pad encircling the toe. However, because of the close proximity of a patient's big toe to the adjacent toe and the difficulty of maintaining them spread apart to permit the insertion therebetween and wrapping of the protector device and the gauze or other fabric retaining material around the big toe, the application of such hand-formed protector devices to a patient's big toe has been a rather cumbersome and time consuming operation, especially in self-application instances. Such application difficulty, moreover, is compounded each time such a hand-applied toe protector device has to be removed and replaced, for example, when the patient wishes to bathe.
Toe straightening devices are known in the art, such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,324 to Berkemann, which also afforded a limited degree of toe protection when in use. However, such devices, where comprised in part of a rigid molded plastic member as shown in the above-mentioned patent, are not only comparatively expensive and cumbersome as well as uncomfortable in use but also interfere with the wearing of a slipper or shoe or other footwear over the applied device.